City of Demons Read Online Free Page A

something cool like that.
    â€œSo, Clyde,” began Margo, “do you know why you’re here?” She spoke in a voice of utter boredom, like he was so beneath her as to barely deserve notice. I raised an eyebrow at this. She might technically be in the position of power here in the courtroom, but at the end of the day, he was a demon and she was an imp. There was no question about who sat at the top of the universe’s food chain.
    From the look on Clyde’s face, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the condescension. The look he gave Margo would have sent me running.
    â€œYeah,” he said in a rumbling baritone. “I’m here because you guys have no clue who took out Anthony and need a scapegoat.”
    Margo’s smile was thin and utterly fake. “Oh, I see. So, you’re here for no reason at all. It’s completely unfair. You have no connection whatsoever to Anthony that would make you a possible suspect. No reason at all that you would have wanted to kill him. You were just plucked out of your everyday life and dropped into this room because the world is cruel and unjust. Poor, poor Clyde.”
    â€œMargo,” said Luis, his smooth voice sliding through the room like a blade. He didn’t even need the gavel to get attention. She jumped. “Stop your posturing and get on with this. If you want to get melodramatic, you can go join the community theater’s production of Our Town .”
    I heard a few snickers, and Margo blushed. She turned back to Clyde, face sober as she became brisk and businesslike.
    â€œYou work here in Los Angeles?”
    â€œYes,” he said.
    â€œNoelle’s been your archdemoness for almost a century?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhich is about the same time Anthony worked for her?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo,” she continued, a bit of that swagger returning, “when Noelle needed to appoint a new lieutenant, it was pretty clear to everyone that it’d be either you or him, based on seniority.”
    The set of Clyde’s face turned hard. “Yes.”
    â€œAnd when the time for her decision came and she picked him , that must have been terribly disappointing.”
    He didn’t answer.
    â€œParticularly since, by all accounts, you are—were—much, much more powerful than him. Am I right?”
    Clyde remained silent, and I didn’t blame him. An acknowledgment of how much stronger he was than Anthony just proved how easily Clyde could have destroyed his rival.
    â€œAnswer the question,” said Luis in a firm voice.
    Clyde grimaced. “Yes.”
    Margo made a great show of flipping through some papers, but I had no doubt she already had everything in them memorized.
    â€œSo . . . let’s see.” More paper flipping. Down the table, the juror I’d suspected was sleeping began snoring. The demon beside him hit him in the arm, jolting him awake. “Okay,” said Margo. “According to what I have here, you had nearly double Anthony’s power. That would have been a neat, easy kill. Over before anyone noticed it—which, from what we can tell, was exactly what happened.”
    â€œI wouldn’t have destroyed him for that,” growled Clyde, his temper clearly rising. “Noelle made her decision. That was that.”
    â€œNot exactly.” Noelle spoke for the first time, and heads turned. She had a sweet, lilting voice. Like music. Even some of the other jurors started paying attention. “You came to me after I appointed him, and you were not happy. In fact, I recall you saying some very ... ugly things to me.” She spoke crisply, all business-like. Even in the heat of an event like this, it was clear professionalism and calm were important to her. I admired that.
    Although it was impossible to tell, I got the impression Clyde was blushing now. “I ... was out of line, Noelle. I shouldn’t have said what I said, and I